CLIFF
by Xule
Summary: after the bus accident [REVIEWS PLEASE]


Cliff drew the card slowly from the top of the deck. Looking at, it he chuckled. He stood up and threw it at the table in front of Kirk.

"I want YOUR bunk!" he bellowed with a triumphant grin.

"Fine." Growled Kirk, removing his belongings from the suspended mattress bolted to the battered bus' wall. "I'll sleep up front…….It's probably _better_ anyway." And he slouched off to sleep behind the driver.

Cliff climbed under the covers and nestled down. This was much more comfortable than the narrow padded seat behind the driver's booth. And it was so warm. He just lay there so relax……….he didn't even have to count the seconds until sleep.

As usual his dreams were fragmented. Imaginings, memories – his father yelling at him for moaning that his neck was sore "Maybe if you didn't bang it so hard all the time it wouldn't be, Cliff!" Unconscious predictions of the bands future, dreams of a faceless wife, nameless children.

The dream grew dark. He was at a desk he couldn't think of what he was supposed to be writing. The page was littered with random notes, none of which went together. Some voice in his head was pressuring him, he had to work, make another instrumental…had to work….

His head hurt. The room was spinning. Or was it just him? He didn't have time to find out. He felt pain. Not dream-pain. Real. Greater than any he had ever felt. He tasted blood. And then…gone

Cliff stood up and walked away from the wreck of the bus. He had been thrown out the window. He wondered how the bus hadn't fallen on him. He had obviously just come within inches of death. His heart did a little flutter in his chest and he inhaled until it stopped.

He heard voices over the ridge. Screaming, moaning. _The others!_ he thought, and sprinted towards them.

James, Kirk and Lars were standing in a huddled circle, all in their boxers. Poor little half-Filipino Kirk shivering in the brisk early-morning air. They were all panicked, trying to figure out what had just happened. Cliff waved. They didn't wave back. Obviously too shocked to react. He stood between Kirk and Lars.

"You guys ok?" he asked, leaning on Lars' shoulder. No-one answered, James glanced in his direction before beginning to hop from one foot to the other. He glanced around at the shouting figures scampering around the bus. People were being pulled out screaming from the wreckage. Cliff's heart went out to them. Poor guys. He couldn't imagine how terrifying that must be.

All of a sudden Kirk's back went rigid. "Guys…." He whimpered. "Where's Cliff?"

Cliff laughed and was about to reply _I'm right here, Hamster_, when all of a sudden James let out a roar and ran up to the bus. There was a pair of legs sticking out from beneath it.

_That's where I'd be if…_Cliff let out an unheard cry of despair as realisation dawned.

"He's not moving!" Wailed James.

Kirk was breathing heavily and chanting "Cliff….Cliff"

Lars was choking back sobs.

Cliff was looking on in horror.

It wasn't long before the truck arrived. The others attached chains to it and then secured them around the bus. "It's no use." Cliff said to Lars. But, of course, no-one heard.

Cliff stood at his own corporeal feet as the truck was put into gear. He heard the creak of the chain and the moan of the truck's engine as the bus began to rise. Unseen survivors quickly scrambled into the arms of medics and were tended to.

Cliff looked down. There lay the remnants of himself, now a bloody mass of broken bones and shredded flesh. He would have wept for what he had lost, were he given the time. But the next second the chain shrieked and snapped in two, and the bus came crashing down again. With it came the helpless wails of his friends, the cries of "CLIFF! CLIFF!", and the weeping, dear God, the weeping.

He looked at the three of them, clinging desperately to one another and begging for the return of the one they had lost and called through his tears: "I'm sorry, guys!"

He stayed with them, of course. As assistant and roadies dragged these three zombies to the next city. As is the way with rock stars, they drank that night. And drank. And drank. And drank. The consumed more in one night than Cliff could ever imagined as he looked on, feeling the guilt grip him firmly in cold talons.

That night the three went their separate ways. Lars and Kirk to sit alone in their rooms. But James stayed in the bar and drank his sorrows away. And Cliff stayed with him.

A little past midnight, James lurched out into the cold Swedish darkness. He staggered up and down the sidewalk. Voice cutting the night with drunken mutterings. Cliff tried to talk to him. "Go back inside, Jay!" He begged. "Please! You're going to get yourself killed. _James!_!"

James had caught his foot on a loose paving stone and fallen to the ground. For a few moments he was motion, then he sat up and drew his breath in a rasping sob.

"CLIFF!" he yelled. "CLIIIFF! Where are you Cliff?"

Cliff knelt by his side and wrapped his friend in spectral arms. Unseen, unfelt, unheard, he held him and wept. "I'm here, buddy! I'm right here!"

"CLIFF!" James bellowed again. "Cliff where are you!"

How, he did not know, but from above Cliff heard Kirk's near-silent sobs, shortly followed by Lars' muffled whimpering. Then his hearing amplified and he heard the millions of heartbroken cries all over the world. All weeping for him, all begging him to come back, all searching for him.

Cliff jumped up, tears streaming down his face.

"I'M RIGHT HERE!" he yelled back. "Can't you hear me? I'm right here! I never left you! I swear I'll never leave you! I'M RIGHT….I'm right…!"

He shrieked into the night and doubled over with tears. Then it came, no more than a breath of air. "_I'm right here."_


End file.
